


The Fox Jumps Over the Moon

by Daerwyn



Series: A Collection of Harry Potter Drabbles [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 5th year au, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, One Shot, Snogging, Teaching, hp drabble 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 16:46:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5878174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daerwyn/pseuds/Daerwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Imagine Draco’s patronus being a fox purposefully because Luna’s is a bunny and foxes chase bunnies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fox Jumps Over the Moon

Her steps were always light, and swift as they carried her down into the hole and not promising that she’d return in one piece. But she was neutral territory. At least, that was what he explained. Half of them thought her too mad to really find her any real threat, even if she did brandish her wand in self-defense. The other half seemed to find her wanderings as harmless as a butterfly’s prance.

None of them suspected she met their very ring leader.

Draco was sitting in the empty classroom that they had designated as their meeting grounds. His body was angled in the corner of a transfigured love seat, his arms draped over both the back and the side, and his head tilted back as he stared at the ceiling. There was something about his haphazardness that intrigued her. It was everything he was not.

He was the chaos in an otherwise perfect storm. Finely groomed, well-mannered in times of pleasantness. But utterly clunky with his body. As if it was too long and lanky to get control over. Like he could not control something about himself. And it made her trust him, out of everything. It was something that told her he was just yet another teenage boy that had fallen victim to the crutches of adulthood.

He did not look up at her entrance, there was no need to. He knew it was her by the clinking of her radish earrings and the shuffling of her bag tossed over her shoulder.

“You’re late,” he drawled.

“I was happy,” Luna returned calmly, and she moved over to where his legs were draped and he moved them just as she sat herself down. His huff of indignation was nearly silent. He had stopped complaining about her making herself at home.

“And what on earth could possibly make you even happier than you always are?” Draco questioned. While his head was now down to look at her, he did not move there rest of his upper body. The menacing look in his eye gave away how un-annoyed he was at her.

“We learned how to do Patroni today.” Draco started. “It’s rather intriguing, you know. To focus on a happy memory for long enough, it must truly be happy, so that you do not get bored with it.”

“Oh?”

“Mmhmm, so I thought of the time I first discovered Threstrals.” Draco’s shoulders slumped slightly into the couch, but she took no notice of it, it seemed. Instead, she dropped her bag at her feet and leaned forward, digging around in it as she continued. “The first time what I saw, others could see too, you see.”

Draco glanced away from her. “I see.”

“It was nice, though I suppose the story on why I could see them is not so happy at all, really. But that’s just life, isn’t it?” She sat up suddenly and Draco could see the book on her lap. A Defense book, ancient and falling apart. “I managed to swipe this from the Room of Requirement before anyone could notice. It has a few rather interesting spells in it.”

“You read it?”

“Of course I did,” Luna smiled brightly. Draco swallowed at the smile, fighting his own in return, and took the book as she pressed it towards him. “I had to make sure that I wasn’t aiding Slytherin in beating Gryffindor in any Quidditch matches. I firmly remain neutral territory. Though I’m afraid the next game I’ve promised to support Gryffindor.”

Draco glanced up from the cover of the book, raising an eyebrow. “What?”

“I’ve promised Ginny,” Luna continued. “It’s her first game as lead seeker since the fight on the Pitch.” He winced slightly, and Luna continued, this time a tad more cautiously. “That wasn’t very nice, you know. They are my friends, too.”

Draco took a deep breath. “Luna, if I cared for them at all, we’d be all sitting in this room together and humming happy little tunes.” She blinked at him innocently. “Don’t you dare look at me like that. You’re the one that hums the tunes, not me.”

“You joined me the last time.”

“Because you got that wretched song stuck in my head,” Draco returned quickly. It had most certainly not been because it made her light up when he had joined. Draco tossed the book onto the ground. “I’ll read this later,” he said quickly, changing the subject. She opened her mouth to protest - either to the mistreatment of the book or to the holding off on the discussion of the book, he didn’t care to know. “So, show me how it’s done.”

“It’s a rabbit,” Luna informed him. “Hmmm, let’s see…” She pulled her wand from her robe pocket and took a deep, concentrating breath. Her eyes closed, and Draco found himself able to stare at her, unnoticed. He seized every second he was given.

He rose off of the couch just a bit to be closer and see how her cheeks shone with the candlelight floating from nearby, and how the moonlight seemed to make her hair glow. It was the exact shade as his, though from two different lines - he had checked over the summer. Extensively. To make sure there was no close relation between them - it would be foolish to think there was absolutely none. All Purebloods were related in someway, through marriage or blood, it mattered not.

Her lips were almost as pale as the pages of the textbook he had tossed away. Yet rosy like the candle’s glow. He shook his head as he glanced away from her quickly.

She was on the wrong side. She rooted for the wrong team, not only in Quidditch, but in the War.

Draco did not glance back to her until her wand raised, her eyes still closed. And her words were strong, crisp, and so clear that Draco could practically see each letter forming on her mouth. Screw Merlin, he would never stop staring at her.

“Expecto Patronum!” The silver wisps erupted from the end of the wand and soon drew out into a slender form. A rabbit.

He found it fitting for her. For her quick wit and her ability to go unseen, a graceful force into a dungeon full of predators. Snakes. Venomous things, really. Poisonous. Toxic. Yet he could not help himself find some relief in her presence. An ability to act as he wanted, as he was, instead of how he was supposed to.

She was serenity personified, and the rabbit only proved that.

Was she a rabbit in other ways? he found himself wondering, briefly. But he quickly shook that thought out of his head as her eyes opened wide to glance at him, and her smile lit up her face. “Now you try.”

He fumbled for his wand, and when he pulled it from his pocket, he copied her straight arm, and the firm grip. “Think of something that makes you happy,” she instructed. “Something that you’ll never bore of.”

He knew it already. “Got it.”

She gave him a happy, almost proud smile. “Wonderful! Now, think on it very hard and say Expecto Patronum.”

He took a deep breath, staring in front of him, as if he was making the memory come to life. A lithe figure lounging on a loveseat, their robes blanketing them and their hair tied back into ribbons and torn scraps of fabric. It was pretty. It was her.

She was always pretty. And as he walked into the room, a small smile curved at her lips, and he could hear his name on them sleepily. She was dreaming about him. It had filled him with so much warmth that he had thought something was wrong with him. Until she had opened her eyes, blinking rapidly at his lumos. And then he knew what he was feeling.

“Expecto Patronum!” The silver wisps were not as strong as hers, but it was a start.

Her rabbit disappeared and she clapped happily as her wand clattered to the floor. “Oh! Wonderful! You’re just starting beautifully, you know!”

He continued the memory in his head, as she recognized him, before stretching on the loveseat and giving him a wide-toothed grin. She was always happy. She was a ray of moonlight, a piece of sunshine in the darkness. In his darkness. “Draco,” she had said in greeting. “I’m sorry, I must have fallen asleep.”

“Figured you’d be here. Do you ever sleep in your dorm, Lovegood?”

She had shrugged, the loose robes dropping to expose mustard yellow pajamas underneath. They were truly ugly. But Draco just gave her a pointed grimace. “Someone’s stolen my other pair,” she had told him brightly. “So, I decided to wait here until they came back. There aren’t as many nargles here as there are in Ravenclaw’s dormitories.”

“I imagine not.” There were subtle things about what she’d say about the creatures that only she could see that told him that maybe she didn’t see them at all. That maybe they were just metaphors. Nargles were dark things - dark thoughts. Bad actions. Bad people. And though the dungeons were full of them, she always slept here, in an abandoned potions classroom, on a transfigured lavender couch. And not where there were at least untainted people.

“It’s safe here, because I know that eventually you’ll stop by.”

It was enough of a declaration of friendship to Draco. He had never had a friend before, but somehow the Loony-bin of a girl had forged one between them.

When his eyes refocused in front of him, Lovegood was squealing in delight from beside him. His patronus had manifested into a corperal form. A fox. The bitter irony in the creature made him want to cancel the charm right there and now.

She was the harmless rabbit, and he was the cunning and deadly fox. He would either kill her himself in the growing war, or be the cause of it somehow.

“He’s beautiful,” Luna murmured. “Truly.”

She reached out to the creature, and unbidden by Draco, it bounded for her hand, and its wide eyes sniffed at it before allowing her hand to pass through it, as if petting it.

“Er, thanks.”

The more her hand passed through it, the more the warmth seemed to spread in his heart. The stronger his memory seemed to be. And the brighter the fox grew. Fuck, what was he doing?

He canceled the charm immediately, letting go of his wand and placing it back in his pocket. She didn’t seem surprised by the abrupt action - she was never surprised. Instead she stared at where it had disappeared from, letting her arm drop, before glancing to Draco, her eyes narrowed slightly in curiosity. ‘Claws, and their bloody curiosity.

“What?”

“You needn’t be ashamed of your patronus. They all mean something, you know.”

“A fox is deadly once released into the coup.” She smiled as if she had just remembered something from a long time ago, a memory that had been lost until sparked to life. She was suddenly standing upright, moving towards him and he could do nothing but angle his body backwards, trying to figure out what the bloody hell she was doing.

“Luna?”

“You’re the only one that calls me that, you know,” she told him softly. “The only one that doesn’t hesitate between Loony and Luna. You’ve never really called me Loony.”

“Think it plenty,” Draco blurted. “Especially with whatever you’re doing right now.” She giggled, as if pleased, and she reached out towards his face. What in Merlin’s name was she doing?  “Luna?”

Bloody fuck. She was leaning into him. And her eyes were closing. Yet he wasn’t pulling away. He alerted his body to do so, but his body seemed to ignore him. She was milimeters from his lips before she answered him.

  
“We’re all mad here, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” he found himself murmuring back. And then she was kissing him, her lips light as air and clouds, pressed against his own. And she did not seem shy as she continued against his frozen form. Not shy at all as he felt her weight sink into the loveseat, and he could feel her knee digging into his thigh.

Who bloody knew Lovegood was a bold bird?

And his body kicked into action. He was not kissing her back - he was potentially ruining his reputation as a brilliant snogging partner. He grabbed her waist and pulled her even closer, so that she was practically sitting on his lap. And while one hand held her in place, the other ran along her neck and into her hair, letting him drink her completely dry. Though she was the one that tasted of ice and sugar. She was the one that molded against him like she was carved out of foam.

And she was the one that made him abandon all thoughts of sense and reason, and hold her to him like his life depended on it. He was pretty sure it was. He was so bloody sure that when she pulled away, he felt like he had been punched in the gut.

There was a wickedness in her eyes as she pulled away, a sensible look that was often absent around others. He had failed to notice it’s presence before, but now that he was certain that it was as he thought, he could recall seeing it before. She was a cheeky, brave little ‘Claw.

“You know, Daddy used to tell me stories of a fox chasing a rabbit.” Her pale lips curved into a smile. “But the ending isn’t always pretty.” She was a tease. Draco could feel her still drawing his breath away from him like she was a bloody dementor. Who knew she could be such a tease? “But the rabbit was quite stupid anyway, and always crossed the fox’s path.” She drew away sharply, reaching for her bag and throwing it over her shoulder. “I’ll see you next weekend, Draco.”

It was not until the door shut behind her and she disappeared that he sucked in some vital air and collapsed back onto the loveseat.

Lovegood was absolutely insane, and he bloody loved it.


End file.
